Five months, maybe
by X5thAvenueX
Summary: Five months may have passed, and the world may have changed, but they have not changed, and that is all that counts.


**Five months, maybe.**

Post season 6 finale. Ziva's POV.

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS.

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It has been five months. Five months and she can still hear his voice in her head, see the apology in his eyes, the defiance in his stance.  
Five months, and she can still feel the gun in her hand, and his little heart beats loudly in his chest, and she pretends not to hear.  
Now her heart beats loudly, and a clock ticks and water drips (or maybe it's blood), and her ears ache from all the noise.  
The bullpen was always so peaceful.

She shot her brother then sat by his side to sing, and maybe to pray, and the boat was not there.  
Gibbs told her you break the bottle. (Gibbs told her goodbye).

Her captors are brutal. Harsh and cold and uncaring, and they touch her with hands that are foreign and rough and her skin burns and maybe something deep inside of her burns too.  
She finds herself hoping that they have not replaced her yet, consoling herself with the fact that Leon will never replace Jenny.  
But Ziva's hair is not red, and she is not lovable. (She isn't even particularly likeable). She does not mind. (It makes her want to cry).

Occasionally she wonders what it would have been like to meet Kate; Kate and Ziva are mutually exclusive (Kate's heart no longer beats).  
On the rare occasions she lets it (is too weak to stop it), her mind drifts to Tali and Ari. (Their hearts do not beat either). Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, they are gone.  
Her father is all that is left, and he is not looking for her. He did not cry at Tali's funeral and when she did, she knew that he thought less of her because of it. She does not care. (It hurts more than this).

The room is dark and stale and the air suffocates her, and she can't remember a time when the smell of copper didn't lie in it, and the taste linger in her mouth.  
Her captors all look the same, and they all sound the same, and she ignores them all, thinking of everything and anything to distract her.  
She pretends that it is not her blood splattered on the walls and floor, and pretends it is not his name on her lips.  
"TonyTonyTony!" she wants to shout. "SavemeSavemeSaveme!"  
She's fairly certain he cannot hear. She's in distress, but Tony does not own anything shiny to wear anyway. He cannot ride a horse.

She only saw Jeanne once, but she was beautiful, and Tony held her hand and she held his heart as they shopped together.  
Ziva pretended not to see them, and later, she pretended a part of her didn't crack and crumble as she listened to his voicemail message (stupid, unfunny, and so very DiNozzo) greet her over the line, as he pretended not to get her calls.  
Alone at her kitchen table, she fiddled with an apple, and he had never seemed so distant, her bed never so big.  
When Jeanne is gone it shrinks, and the gap between them shortens ever so slightly.

Ziva doesn't sleep at night. She doesn't know the time, the clock is strategically placed out of her line of sight, but there's a small, barred window, high on one of the walls, and in the day time sunlight illuminates a small patch on the floor to the side of her.  
At night there is nothing, just the hard chair, and the cold walls, and her.  
She drifts in and out of consciousness, and is roused by the slamming of a door and the angry footsteps of men whose names she still does not know, and does not want to.  
Her name is Ziva David, but she will not tell them. They think it is important. She thinks it might just mean nothing at all.

It has been five months, six days, and twenty two hours since she last saw him. She doesn't know this, and it doesn't matter.  
Her heart beats reluctantly in her bruised chest as the blows rain down and the blood rains down and outside her cell, the sky falls down.  
It has been five months, six days, and twenty three hours when the shots ring out, and then the door opens, and he is there.  
It has been five months and he still looks the same, and as he unties her hands he still smells the same, and when he lifts her effortlessly into his arms, he still feels the same.  
He might be talking to her, but she can't hear above the noise of his heart as it beats loudly in his chest, and she clings to him, her heart no longer reluctant.

The next thing she knows there is a noise, not dripping or shouting or the crack of a whip, but a quiet, calm beeping, and everything is white.  
He is holding her hand, she knows without looking, and there are no movie references or jokes and his eyes are sincere, and there is finally nothing left in between them.  
He strokes her hair and she realises it has always been this way.  
A clock ticks but she does not mind.  
Her little heart beats (beeps) through the machine, and his pulses along in time with it.

It has been five months, yet no time has passed.

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Please review!


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